Within the Advanced Scheduler, when Shifts are posted, eligible employees will have the ability to request the Shift through their ESS Hub. When open Shifts are requested, it requires approval from a designated Workforce User, and the details of the request can be viewed within the Shift Request Approvals section under the Open Shifts tab.
This section also includes a Call Outs tab for managing Call Out requests, applicable only if the "Call Out" request type is enabled within the Requests & Approvals feature.
To view and manage Shift requests and call outs, navigate to the Scheduling section within the Actions tab and select: Shift Request Approvals.
Open Shift Requests
The Open Shifts tab displays only the posted Shifts that have been requested. It does not show any posted Shifts that have been unclaimed. This is important to note because posted Shifts that have not be requested can be unposted within either the Employee View or Daily View of the schedule.
When a Shift is requested, it appears under this tab grouped by Shift, listing all employees who have submitted requests for it. Each request includes the employee’s projected hours for the current pay period, helping the Assignee to assess overtime implications before approving the request. Please note that the projected hours do not factor in the requested Shift, so the Assignee will also have to account for the length of the Shift being requested when making their decision.
By default, the tab displays Shift requests for the next seven days, starting from the current date. This view can be adjusted through the Settings icon in the top-right corner to show requests for the next one, seven, 14, or 28 days. The timeframe set here is associated with the Start Date, which can also be adjusted if needed in order to view these requests from a different date.
For each requested Shift, the Shift's budget will be displayed. This is an important detail because this tells the Assignee how many employees need to be approved in order for the Shift's budget to be met. In scenarios where there are more requests than what is needed, this should tell the Assignee how many employees need to be approved.
When approving a Shift request, simply click the blue "Approve" button. This will automatically reject any additional requests that were not selected. Employee's who were approved will receive an email notification that they have been approved for the Shift and it will be reflected within the schedule immediately.
Call Outs
The Call Outs tab within the Shift Request Approvals section houses any schedule "Call Outs" that have been requested by employees. If the "Call Out" request type is enabled, employees will have the ability to request a "Call Out" through their ESS Hub for any assigned Shift, should unforeseen circumstances arise where they need to miss their Shift on short notice.
Workforce Users designated as the "Assignee(s)" for Call Out requests will be able to manage submitted requests on this tab. This screen will default to all Call Outs that have been assigned to you, however there is the option to see Call Outs that have been assigned to "Others" as well. When reviewing a Call Out request, the Assignee can approve the Call Out request with Paid Time Off (PTO) or approve it as Unpaid. There is also a column for Year-To-Date (YTD) Call Outs showing how many times the employee has called out over the course of the year, helping the Assignee to make an informed decision when reviewing the request.
Once the Assignee approves the request, the changes will be reflected within the schedule and the Shift's budget will be updated appropriately.
Please note that Schedule Callouts should be used for short-notice absences. For any planned absences or adjustments to the employee's job responsibilities reflected within their assigned Shift, Work Categories should be used instead to track those situations. Please refer to Empeon's article Work Categories to learn more about how these are set up and applied.